


Invisible Ink

by extraneous_accessories



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Nightindeaux, PTSD, Sad spy and sad magician, i just ship them with happiness okay, non con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:42:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21555691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extraneous_accessories/pseuds/extraneous_accessories
Summary: “He tasted like scotch and loneliness. In all that was to come to him later, he held on to that taste for all he was worth, to the feel of Nightingale's lips on his, the way they melted perfectly against one another like smoke and flame. “
Relationships: Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux, Jim Prideaux/Thomas Nightingale
Comments: 7
Kudos: 122





	1. Safety

It was raining. Of course it was raining. Just then, it felt as though it had been raining for years-maybe even since the end of the war. There was a weariness that crept into the bones, weighing down every step, and Jim Prideaux felt as though he could hardly lift his feet to walk up to the lift. Lofton Flats was a dingy complex with damp carpet. Indeterminate brown, clear trails marked on it by the passage of endless muddy boots. If a person were to walk outside the dark smudges, take the road less travelled, they’d stick out like a top hat on a coal miner. Odd and undesirable. 

It was fitting that Jonathan Shepherd lived in one of these flats. The watcher briefs painted him as a dingy man himself, going through the motions of the bureaucratic grind every day of his unremarkable life. Brown suits, ivory shirts, cheap leather shoes, and a two pack a day smoking habit that left the flat smelling of nicotine and disappointment. Prideaux had always wondered what it was that made people like Shepherd turn to selling state secrets. Perhaps it was the utter monotony of daily existence. A brown life stretching on into eternity, with nothing to look forward to but tax returns and a quiet funeral when it was all over. In the face of that, treason had to be a more interesting prospect.

In his own case, espionage had fitted like a glove. Multilingual, athletic, a love for England so strong he could practically taste it, and Bill Haydon, who had pulled strings and whispered in ears. In the war, the objective had been so clear; undermine the German war effort by any means necessary. Any means. He never shrank from doing his duty, no matter how unpleasant, which was probably what had landed him here in this awful Chelsea flat. 

The targets had gotten vague, the whole world wrapped in a grey smoke of half truth, but he still stuck to his duty as doggedly as he ever had. It was in his blood. It was silly season in Brixton, with no new scalp hunter work and nothing to do except sweep up Toby Esterhause’s messes. For the last several months, the messes had been quite minor, just a quick search and a report filed to the fifth floor that would never be read. Now, there was Jonathan bloody Shepherd, lying in a mess of his own blood on the linoleum floor of the bathroom, entirely naked except for his bath towel. 

Jim was just trying to work out where to begin, how to tackle the awful business of clearing up after a dead spy, when he heard a polite cough behind him. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Ellis.” Prideaux turned away from the mess on the floor to face the police constable. 

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to introduce you to DCI Nightingale, sir,” the boy said in a rush, “He’s here from...from...head office. Looking for, um...irregularities.” 

“Just anything out of the ordinary.” The smooth, polished voice that cut across the constable matched the smooth, polished man in the suit standing near the door. He stepped forward and held out a pale, well-manicured hand. 

“Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale.” 

Jim took the hand, pleasantly surprised by Nightingale’s firm grip. “Ellis,” he replied.

Nightingale stepped past him to look down at the corpse. “A pleasure. I understand our Mr. Shepherd was quite keen on espionage?” 

It was a strange way to say ‘selling any and all government secrets he could get his hands on’, but Prideaux just nodded. The man didn’t bother to wait for a reply, just turned back to the constable, who seemed overwhelmed at the presence of so many specialists at his crime scene. 

“I’ll need a few moments with the body, no more than that,” he said, “Then you can carry on and clean him up. It’s the rest of the flat I’ll need time with, probably just the bedroom and the office, if he even had an office in a place like this.” 

The inspector wrinkled his face as he took in the brown patterned tile around the bathtub. By the cut of his suit, Prideaux supposed the inspector had a sense of style that must have been deeply offended by this dingy little place. He leaned back against the wall as the constable left the room. Strictly speaking, he himself had no need to examine the body, but he was curious to see what this sleek DCI would do with it. In his experience, police tended to be fairly preoccupied with a victim’s body, it being full of useful clues such as ‘how did this chap bite it?’, so he watched with rising interest as Nightingale wandered aimlessly around, brows pulled down into a frown over his startling blue eyes. He paused now and then, holding a hand out over the body, the bathtub, and even the walls. Bunch of bloody mumbo jumbo, as far as he could see, but the man seemed to take it seriously. 

After brushing a hand over the sink, Nightingale drew his breath in with a sharp hiss. He then proceeded to pass that hand back and forth over the same spot, eyes closed, the lines of his forehead growing deeper and deeper. Then he sighed, putting his hands back into his pockets and turning to look at Jim. 

“Complex case,” he said. There was real regret in his voice, which made Prideaux wonder what kind of cases he usually handled.

“I’m afraid I’m not really aware of what it is you do, Mr...Ellis, was it?” Nightingale’s gaze was direct, filled with a familiar suspicion. ‘Intelligence officer’ was such an awkward title, but he used it anyway. Nightingale’s confused frown didn’t let up, so Jim straightened and headed for the bathroom door. 

“I’m just here to tidy, Inspector. Survey the damage as best as I’m able, then write it up for the juju men.”

“I...see.” Nightingale followed him to the spare bedroom that Shepherd had clearly been using for an office. There was a small card table cluttered with papers and files, a rickety chair, and a desk lamp that looked as though it belonged in one of the seedier kinds of pub. 

“Man like Shepherd,” Prideaux continued, “he shouldn’t make trouble. Minimal access, low grade stuff, nothing flashy. We should be able to watch him easy, then turn him and burn him whenever we like. Only now he’s dead, so that gets my outfit to wondering what made him important enough to get him all spread out on the floor like that.” It was an understatement of monumental proportions. Control’s call had jangled him out of bed, and the bark down the line had woken him in an instant. Murder was a hazard in the business, sure, but it was normally reserved for people who had seen something they shouldn’t have, or who knew more than was good for them. Shepherd should not have fitted into either slot, and there the question lay-what had Shepherd known that had made him dangerous enough to kill? And what had made the killer so nervous that they had done such a sloppy job of it?

The signs of searchers were everywhere in the spare room. Even the worst of slobs tended to keep a bit of the floor clear, but there were scraps of paper scattered all over the carpet. The ancient green filing cabinet in the corner stood with three of its drawers open, in danger of falling over, and several books from the bookshelf had been thrown to the floor. They lay there in a sad pile, pages aflutter and spines stood up against the cruel world. 

Prideaux bent down and picked them up. The covers on the paperback copy of The Catcher in the Rye were irrevocably curled, but he smoothed them as best he could and replaced the volume on the shelf. The hardback reference for House Procedure had fared better, the leather bound covers protecting the pages from all but the slightest creasing. He placed it on its side on the shelf where its prodigious weight would smooth the creases away. Sloppy work, which meant an amateur, or a professional in a hurry. From the targeted look of the search, Prideaux was inclined to think the latter. 

A touch on his arm started him from his thoughts. Nightingale stood at his elbow, frowning at the bookshelf. 

“Excuse me,” he said, slipping by to run long, slender fingers over the spines of the books. 

Prideaux left him to it,choosing to ignore the interruption. In any case, it looked as though Shepherd’s killers had found whatever there was to be found in the office. He moved on to the bedroom, where spies and traitors tended to keep their dearest treasures, where a careless spy might have left him some little tidbits. He was unsure what he was looking for at this stage, but he began the search with the bedside table. A copy of the Bible, a box of tissues, nothing remarkable. He knocked at the wood, listening carefully. No sign of hidden compartments or replaced panels. He moved from there to the bed, the walls, the dresser, saving the closet for last. ‘Skeletons in the closet’ wasn’t a cliché for nothing. 

Shepherd hadn’t hidden any corpses in the closet, but Jim did find a cardboard box hidden away on a top shelf that looked rather promising. The contents were remarkably clear of dust, indicating recent placement or regular use. Odd, then, that the books and papers he pulled out one by one were completely incomprehensible. There were nonsense titles like ‘The Practice and Theory of Newtonian Magic’ and ‘Ars magica’, but it was the papers that caused him real concern. 

They were covered on all sides with symbols from an alphabet he didn’t recognize but found troubling. He classified the diagrams in the margins as ‘vaguely mathematical’, and the rest of the papers as ‘deeply unsettling’. He was about to pack the lot back into the box to return to the Circus when Nightingale entered the room. 

“Holy God, where did you find that?” he asked sharply. 

“In the closet,” Prideaux replied without looking up. 

“Excuse me,” Nightingale started to reach for the papers, but Prideaux caught him by the wrist.

“No.” 

Nightingale pulled away, eyes wide, as Prideaux rose from the floor, taking the box with him. 

“I beg your pardon?” he finally spluttered. 

“I said no, I do not excuse you.” Prideaux set the box down on the bed and looked back to the Inspector. “If you’d like to examine these papers for whatever it is you examine for, then you can wait until I’ve finished.” 

He turned his back on Nightingale and began to methodically re-examine each piece of paper in the box one at a time. He knew he was being petty, but the inspector’s presumption had started to grate on him.

“Do you have any idea what you have in your hands?” Nightingale asked from behind him. 

Prideaux did not, but he wasn’t about to admit it. You didn’t show weakness in front of officers and, police rank notwithstanding, Nightingale showed every mark of being an officer. Commanding voice, air of assurance, and a suit tailored sharp enough to cut a man.

“Paper.” 

Nightingale’s exasperated sigh was gratifying. “Aside from that?”

“Probably some ink as well. Words. Pictures. Quite a complex array of those.” 

“Oh, for God’s sake, man,” Nightingale snapped, “if you haven’t any idea what you’re tampering with, then stand aside.” 

Prideaux froze. That had had the authoritative ring of an order. He had been right then, officer material through and through. He placed a sheet of paper back in the cardboard box and turned slowly. 

“I’m not sure just what you do here, Inspector,” he said quietly, “but if you have any concerns about jurisdiction as regards this evidence, I have a number you can call.” 

Nightingale started back as if he’d been slapped. 

“Juris-what? This isn’t about jurisdiction, Mr. Ellis, this is about your immediate safety.” 

Prideaux raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t over keen to admit it, but something in Nightingale’s voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He waited for an explanation. 

Nightingale sighed. “Please, Mr. Ellis” he said in the careful tones of one keeping a tight lid on his emotions, “I don’t want to waste your time or mine. I see you’ve got a copy of Ars Magica in that box, and I would like to confirm that there is nothing else of a magical nature that could cause you or anyone else immediate harm.”

Prideaux blinked. Then he shrugged. “Alright then.” 

It was several moments before Nightingale joined him at the bed. Prideaux did his best to ignore his furtive flumblings with the books, but as the muffled expletives and frustrated sighs grew more numerous, he couldn’t help inquiring. Questions were his job, after all.

“Something the matter?” 

To his surprise, Nightingale sat heavily on the edge of the bed and cradled his head in his hands. “Has anyone ever told you that you are an infuriating man?” he asked from behind his fingers. 

“Once or twice.” 

“Good.” Nightingale sighed deeply. “And yes, something is the matter. This whole case gets more complex by the moment. I don’t want to unsettle you, but this box of evidence would suggest that Mr. Shepherd was a practitioner.” 

“Mm?” 

“A practitioner. A student of the magic arts.” 

“Ah,” Prideaux returned his attention to the box. “Can’t see how that makes it more complicated.” 

Nightingale raised his head. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” 

“Every word,” Prideaux agreed, “just don’t see how magical mumbo jumbo makes a thing more complicated. Lot of bureaucrats have hobbies.” 

“Yes, but not every bureaucrat’s hobby has the capability of world destruction.” 

Prideaux nodded. “Treason can do that.” 

Nightingale looked up at him as though he’d grown an extra head. “Treason?” 

“I hear the atom bomb is high on the list of things that cause world destruction,” Prideaux said absently, leafing through a folder of papers covered in what looked like three headed elephants. 

“The atom bomb?” Nightingale repeated in disbelief, “I was talking about the magic!” 

“Don’t see that it matters much.” 

“How-what? Have you been listening? If Shepherd was selling magical secrets to the Russians along with all his other material, then the world could be headed for a crisis like it’s never seen!” 

The rant continued. It sounded like Nightingale had a lot to get off his chest, so Prideaux just let him talk. Well, shout, mostly. A lot of details about mixing Western and Eastern magical traditions, and the ways in which magical apocalypse would turn them all into mushrooms. Or something. Prideaux hadn’t quite caught the tail end of the explanation. He made a mental note to study up on magic when he had a spare moment. If it was going to start coming up in casework, then he’d feel better for knowing what it was. 

When Nightingale finally fell quiet, he was breathing hard. He’d gotten himself quite worked up, and the spots of colour high on his cheeks only served to highlight the dark circles under his eyes. Prideaux has seen that look before. It was common in agents who had been behind the curtain, where the fear of discovery and death kept them up at night for so long they forgot what sleep felt like. There was a desperation in the inspector’s pale face, and it stirred something in Prideaux that felt like pity. He was not a man prone to gentle words, but he took a deep breath and chose the kindest ones he could find. 

“Magic sounds pretty damned hairy, Inspector,” he said, “I only meant to say that it won’t change the outcome much if Shepherd was selling magic or missiles. Lies are lies, treason’s treason, and if a man shoots you dead in the street, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what caliber bullet he uses. You’re just as dead. Only difference is the size of the hole.” 

Nightingale sat very still for a long time. Then he gave a weary nod. “You’re right,” he said in a hollow voice. “Of course you’re right. And I...I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It’s only...there are hundreds of men like you watching out for the nuclear sort of apocalypse.” He looked up and, just then, Prideaux saw the eyes of a man who had left hope so far behind that he couldn’t even remember what it looked like. “There’s only one of me.” 

Prideaux nodded slowly. He remembered what that was like. One lonely, terrified man up against what seemed like the whole world. Then he picked up the copy of Ars Magica from the box, turning it over in his hand, filing all the details away in his watcher’s mind. 

“This is the kind of thing you’re on the watch for?” he asked. Nightingale nodded. 

“Can’t be that difficult to spot if it gets left in boxes in closets,” Prideaux said. He gave Nightingale a grin. “Looks to be two of us watching for the juju men now.”

Watching for the juju men. That’s what he called it in his mind when he was out on scalp hunter business. He’d just keep an eye out, he’d told Nightingale, look for things like that strange alphabet, things that didn’t belong. It was like learning to see with new eyes, but being a watcher had always come naturally to him. It was as easy as kicking a football or hitting a six. So he watched. Every time a new case came along, he’d ruffle through papers looking for those little extras, the breadcrumbs that led through treason and put the other side to...the other stuff. He never found much, which seemed to reassure Nightingale whenever they met in pubs and police stations across London. 

When he did find something, a scrap of paper or a copy of a book, Prideaux tried not to ask too many questions about it. The explanation seemed to cause more consternation for Nightingale than the poor man needed and so he held back. He kept his curiosities to himself, waiting and watching as the inspector slowly unfolded. It was a painful process, peeling back the layers of mistrust and stress, but he was a patient man. Every time they met, Nightingale became more open, drew back another veil on this strange new world. Prideaux collected every detail dropped, filing them away until he could add to the map that was growing in his mind.

“I must say, you seem to be remarkably calm about all this,” Nightingale remarked one afternoon over pints in a quiet pub off Russell Square. “The magic, I mean.”

Prideaux couldn’t help but smile. “Would panic help?” 

“No, I suppose not,” Nightingale laughed. He had been doing more of that lately, and Prideaux found himself enjoying the sound. Summer was fading into fall, and there was something about the crisp air and fading colour that made Nightingale more vibrant, more alive. It was strange, though not unpleasant. 

“All the same,” Nightingale continued, “It is the more expected reaction. I’ve found it’s best to just avoid the topic altogether whenever possible.”

Prideaux nodded. “The world’s mad enough without adding the inexplicable.”

“It’s no more inexplicable than any other phenomena,” Nightingale protested, warming up to embark upon one of his favourite lectures. “Once trained, a practitioner should be able to understand the magical world in the same way a physicist or a biologist understands the non-magical one.”

Prideaux nodded. He was used to this kind of sermon. For a man who tried his best to keep magic away from regular citizens, Nightingale could extemporate at length on the subject. How magic was, if properly studied, a logical, practical science, as formulaic as Newton’s other laws. Prideaux had yet to see any evidence that any of it was true, of course, but that was the way he liked it. Indulging this fascinating man in his oddities was one thing, but actually stretching as far as true belief...he didn’t feel quite ready for that leap.

Fall faded slowly to winter. An icy fog wrapped London in its frigid embrace. Jim had just returned from a mercifully uneventful trip to Czechoslovakia and was eager for the warmth and solitude of his small flat in Brixton. It wasn’t much, but it was his, and a quiet satisfaction built in his chest as he climbed the steps to his door. After flitting from hotel to safe house for a week and a half, he was ready for silence, for calm. 

His hopes were shattered when he saw the door sitting partly open. He froze. He had locked it. He always locked it. His heart began to beat faster, every sense suddenly on high alert, watching for some sign of what was waiting for him in the darkened sitting room. He stood with his back to the wall and kicked the door open.He waited. Leather squeaked. Someone in the antique easy chair, he guessed, medium weight and build. He heard a dramatic sigh, followed by the flick of the lamp. A flood of warm light spilled onto the hall carpet. 

“You may as well come in, Jim.” 

Bill. Far from relaxing him, the sound of his friend’s voice wound his nerves even tighter. Bill was like too much vodka- good at the time, but a recipe for one hell of a hangover. 

He slid himself around the door jamb, tucking his gun back into the waistband of his slacks. “Hello, Bill.” 

“Haven’t lost your touch, old boy,” Bill Haydon said with that lopsided, boyish grin that made Jim’s insides writhe like snakes. “Still as cautious as ever.” 

“And you’re just as presumptive,” Jim replied, closing the door. “Why didn’t you just ring up instead of ambushing me?”

In a moment, Bill was next to him, artist’s fingers running down his neck, the scent of cologne in his nostrils. “You know why.”

Jim took a shaking breath. “And which of the evening’s secret rendezvous is this? Number two? Three? Or do I finally merit first choice?” 

“There’s no need to be that way.” Bill’s hands were on his hips, pushing him back into the wall as he continued to protest like a petulant child. “I missed you while you were away. I can’t stand those fifth floor stooges,” Bill continued between kisses down his neck, “they’re fakes, every one of them. You know you’re the only one who makes me feel real. Solid.” 

Bill’s hand slid down to his crotch, making him gasp. He fought to keep his head, but it only felt like the useless kick of a drowning man who had never known how to swim. “Bill…”

Haydon moaned in reply, struggling with Jim’s belt. Jim made another attempt, hating every inch of his body for betraying him like this. “Bill, we can’t, I…”

“I don’t care.” Bill pulled away, flushed and bright eyed. “I don’t care that we shouldn’t, I just want you, all of you.”

It was that face, the eyes, the heat...Jim struggled, cursing himself for his weakness, but unable to pull away from Bill’s possessive embrace. So he did what he had always done- tried his best to make Bill happy, and to forget what it meant to be used.

It never worked. He sat in his bed afterward, watching his cigarette smoke pooling in the stale air, Bill sprawled out half asleep beside him. He felt restless, twitchy. The air was too close, the memory of Bill’s hands too fresh on his skin. He felt like a caged animal and it suddenly became difficult to breathe. Bill pawed at him sleepily as he climbed out of bed, but Jim ignored him. A walk. He needed to walk. 

The cold hit him like a slap as he stepped into the street, taking the breath from his lungs. He shoved his hands into his pockets and began to walk, not caring if he ever warmed up. It was absurd to be hurt, he knew that. Bill was a tomcat and had been his whole life. He wasn’t likely to change now at thirty five. It didn’t matter how much you loved someone, how hard you tried to hold onto them, you couldn’t force loyalty into a nature that had none. 

The worst of it was, he couldn’t seem to force acceptance on himself either. Once upon a time he had convinced himself that having the best of Bill would be enough, but it had never been. It had always felt like leaning back into a net that could give way at any moment. Strained and terrifying. It had only gotten worse since they were both promoted. Bill would spend days, weeks, even months away, entertaining debutantes and young male ballet dancers, living life in the only whirlwind way he knew how, trying to fill up the empty place in his soul. Jim, still searching for safety where none could be, would go inward. Build up the quiet routine of simple pleasures that made life bearable. A fresh rolled cigarette. A hard run. The first sip of fine vodka. He would curl in on the warmth and comfort of his solitude until Bill crashed back into his life, scattering his calm and leaving his heart in shreds. It was getting harder and harder to pick up the pieces.

The pavement was reassuring under his feet as he settled into a rhythm. He didn’t care where his feet took him, he only craved the burn in his muscles, the utter weariness that followed exertion. He began to shiver, but shoved the discomfort aside. Time seemed to narrow around him, stretching forward in a tunnel that only included the cold, the pavement, and the next street ahead. The shiver became more pronounced. The remnants of his sanity reminded him that he should have worn more clothes for a walk like this, something more than his undershirt and jacket, and that if he kept on like this he’d end up with frostbite or a fever or worse. He kept walking. 

It could have been hours, or maybe only minutes. When he looked back later he could never see it clearly, but regardless of the time it took, his feet led him right to Russel Square, where he never knew he needed to go. 

The old manor house in Russell Square was a piece of intelligence he had collected months ago from one of his pub conversations with Nightingale. He had hidden it away for later use, noting the mix of fondness and cynicism that entered Nightingale’s voice when he spoke of the Folly. He stood now looking up at the doors, chuckling at the irony of it all. Men striving to protect the world against the misuse of frightening power, believing they were in the right, when really it had been a fool’s errand all along. Whoever Nightingale’s predecessors had been, they had had a sense of humour. 

The steps to the door were slick with frost, and he stepped carefully, trying his best to subdue the shiver that now seemed to want to shake his bones loose from his body. Watching his fingers tremble on their path to the knocker, he wondered if he hadn’t really overdone things this time. Bronze slapped bronze, and he had barely tucked his shaking hand back into his coat pocket before the door swung open. 

A woman with large, dark eyes stood in the entrance, looking up at him with her head cocked to one side like a spaniel. It gave him a bit of a turn, but she was wearing a well-starched maid’s uniform, so he asked if the Inspector might be in, or if he possibly had the wrong house. 

She stood staring at him for the space it took his heartbeat to quicken, then turned her back on him and walked away. It was only when she stopped part way to the stairs and looked back at him that he realized he most likely had the right house and was expected to follow. Once the door had swung shut behind him and his shoes began to echo wildly in the spacious entry, the maid turned and glided up the stairs with an uncanny grace. 

He followed her in silence, taking in the impressive features of the house. Though certainly no architect, he appreciated the antique feel of the place. In a way, it matched Nightingale quite well. Quiet, understated, yet somehow timeless and solid. It even had polished brass work in all the right places, the little flourish that made it something special. Like Nightingale. Something special. The thought tripped him up, a small mental stutter that he hadn’t been expecting. He frowned, but was unable to give the idea any further consideration, because the maid stopped outside one of the many identical oak doors and gave a delicate knock. 

On Nightingale’s muffled “Come in, Molly,” she opened the door a crack and slipped through, leaving Jim standing in the corridor. 

Nightingale was sitting at an ornate desk in his shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled up to his elbows. He looked up, frowning a little, as Molly swept across the richly carpeted floor toward him. 

“Really, Molly,” he began, laying down a very fine looking fountain pen, “there’s no need to knock when it’s just the two of us, I don’t-“ the words broke off abruptly as Molly bent down, a curtain of straight dark hair obscuring her features as she hissed something in Nightingale’s ear. His frown deepened and for a moment Jim’s heart sank. Then Nightingale stood and came toward him, concern writ large on every plane of his face. 

“Mr. Ellis! Please, do come in, Molly assures me you’re close to freezing to death”

The sound of his work name jangled in his ears, but he gratefully allowed himself to be ushered to a chair in front of the large fireplace. Nightingale took the chair opposite him, Molly hovering over his shoulder. 

“May we get you a drink? Brandy? Tea? Vodka?” 

“A brandy would be-“ Jim coughed the last of the cold from his lungs and swallowed hard, finding his voice again. “Brandy would be perfect, thank you.”

Molly slipped from the room like a shadow, and Nightingale leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What’s happened?” 

Jim hadn’t really thought this far ahead. Suddenly, the reality of sitting in Nightingale’s study at three in the morning became embarrassingly clear to him and he gave a soft laugh. “Truly, Inspector, I’m not sure. The short answer is that I took myself for a walk and it proved colder than I’d expected. The other answer is a little longer and a lot more complicated.” 

There was a clink of glass at his elbow and he started, looking over to see Molly pouring him a generous brandy from a crystal decanter. She would have made a deadly agent, with steps as quiet as that. He wasn’t even sure he could have snuck up on himself so well. 

“Thank you, Molly, I think we’ll be alright for the time being.” The kindness in Nightingale’s voice was reassuring. Jim felt the memories of the whole awful evening welling up inside him like a storm. He might have been able to keep it inside, just drink his brandy and leave, but Nightingale leaned back in his chair, folding himself into a pile of elegant angles, and said gently, “I’m listening, Mr. Ellis.” 

“Prideaux.” The word slipped from him before he could catch it. Nightingale’s eyebrows rose a little. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Ellis is a work name. Prideaux is my name. Jim Prideaux. James to my mother.” He was babbling, but couldn’t stop himself. There was something about the way Nightingale sat there in quiet expectation that drew the words from him like poison from a wound. 

“I’m sorry to walk in on you like this,” he continued, watching the flicker and dance of the fire in the hearth, “I didn’t really intend to come here, I just walked and then Russell Square was there, and I remembered that you...well, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look you up. Got colder than I thought. Long walk back to Brixton.”

“You walked here from Brixton?” Nightingale exclaimed, “in this weather? Good lord, man, what for?” 

Jim shrugged, focusing on the pain in his hands and feet as they adjusted to the comforting warmth of the study. “Felt cooped up. Couldn’t think. Needed to walk.”

He could practically feel the worry rolling off Nightingale in waves, but couldn’t bring himself to look away from the fire. “Bit of a rum evening. Met up with an old friend.” The words came from him in awkward jerks, but he didn’t want to stop them. “Very old friend. Good chap, one of the best. Works in the same line, only he’s brilliant. Bloody brilliant with the fifth floor chaff. Artist, all that. Only…only...” something seemed to dry up inside him, like an interrogation gone wrong. He couldn’t bring himself to put the hole in his heart into words. It just yawned open ahead of him, threatening to swallow him whole. Finally, he muttered, “Can’t always rely on him.” 

Silence stretched between them for a long while. Jim knew he should fill it, but all the words were gone. He sat there, cold and miserable, wondering what in holy hell had brought him to throw his half articulated sorrows on Nightingale’s carpet. He was nearly ready to get up and show himself out when Nightingale’s soft voice broke the silence.

“I don’t mean to presume,” he said, “but we’re certainly not lacking space here, if you’d like to stay the night. In fact, I think if I were to send you back to Brixton Molly would have my head. We-She’s very keen on hospitality.”

Jim finally looked up. A small smile hung on Nightingale's face, and the sight of it seemed to soften something in his chest. “That’s damn good of you to offer,” he whispered. 

“It’s purely self-serving,” Nightingale assured him, “I haven’t had breakfast guests in years. Molly will probably out do herself on the meal.”

Jim didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded. “Thank you.” 

It wasn’t until they were standing outside one of the long row of dormitory rooms that Nightingale spoke again. He laid one hand on Jim’s shoulder and looked him steadily in the eye. “I don’t ever need to know what happened between you and...and your friend,” he said softly, showing a perceptiveness Jim has not expected, “You are always welcome at the Folly. Stay here as long as you need.” A lump rose in Jim’s throat, but he managed a nod. 

Nightingale smiled. “Good night, Mr. Prideaux.” 

“Jim.” 

“Right. Good night, Jim.” 

“Good night.”

Jim woke with the sun. Dusty pink light filtered through the gap in the curtains and, for a moment, a sense of peace washed over him. He felt as though he had left the cares of the real world behind and had settled into this calm, quiet place away from everything. Then the memories of the night before came back to him. 

He lay staring at the ceiling, remembering the panic, the utter revulsion of feeling Bill’s hands on his skin and the deep pit of shame that bubbled in his belly. Then, mercifully, he remembered Nightingale. The eyes were what stood out the most in his mind, blue in the long aristocratic planes of the face, edges crinkled with concern. They had felt safe. 

He sat up slowly. Safety wasn’t something that existed in his world, he knew that, but it felt very good to have experienced it for just a moment. He savoured the feeling, tucking it away into the secret place in his mind where his best treasures were kept. 

It was early, though he realized as he was dressing that he had left his watch back at his flat along with his dignity. No matter. The big house was quiet, covered in the heavy cloth of time and disuse, and he could quite comfortably pass the time wandering its many corridors. He was tempted to slip out the front door and away, to leave his unfamiliar comfort here in this stale place, to go back to seeing Nightingale as a professional curiosity, but the idea of Molly preparing breakfast for an absent and thankless guest filled him with guilt. So he wandered. 

The paneled halls reminded him a little of Oxford, with their old world charm and timeless elegance. Everything from the carpet to the window glass seemed to have been designed with gravitas in mind. There were also plenty of exits, which he appreciated, and an excellent place from the second floor balcony where he could view the grand entrance entirely unobserved. He stood there in that little patch of invisibility for some time. It felt good to watch unseen. It gave him back some of the equilibrium that had been snatched the night before, even if the gathering sunlight glinting off the statue of Isaac Newton was really all there was to see. 

“The dread night passed, the patient clock ticked on. The weary watcher moved not from his place.” 

Nightingale’s soft voice caught him by surprise. He turned abruptly to see the inspector walking down the upper corridor. He looked entirely too smooth for half six in the morning, but his easy stride and gentle smile rekindled the warm feeling of safety Prideaux remembered from the night before. 

“Have you been standing there all night?” 

Jim shrugged. “Someone had to make sure Newton didn’t fall over.”

Nightingale chuckled. “He’s stood for quite some time, but I’m sure he appreciates you keeping an eye out. Have you eaten?”

Jim shook his head. “Kitchen was empty when I wandered by, so I kept on.”

Nightingale’s eyebrows rose. “It’s not like Molly to sleep late-what time were you down there?”

“Not sure. Left my watch last night.” 

“Mm.” Nightingale backed off the subject of ‘last night’ like a lorry in reverse, screeching uncomfortably into breakfast instead. Jim let the small talk wash over him as they walked back to the dining room. He was grateful for Nightingale’s avoidance. It would probably have done him good to talk about it, but his relationship with Bill was a difficult thing to get his tongue around at the best of times. Sitting in the morning light with Nightingale, looking at the most elaborate breakfast spread he had ever laid eyes on, it felt better to lock all of it away. He’d have to think about it sooner or later, but not here, not now. 

Instead, he focused on Nightingale. It was strange, hearing him in his own habitat. There was something about the Folly that made all his talk of practical magic feel more solid, more real. When their talk faded into the comfortable silence he valued so highly, he allowed himself to see pieces of the inspector that he had, up until now, filed away for future reference. The lightness of his hands, his stories of the war. Both wars. The way he didn’t look a day over forty. The way he spoke around certain things with the grace of a fencer, leaving delicate holes in all his tales where the pronouns ought to be. The deep loneliness that leaked out of him at every seam. Loneliness and something else, something like regret.

Jim had always thought he knew what regret felt like but, as he and Nightingale slid through the chilly Saturday together, reading, walking, playing a spirited round of billiards, he revised his previous estimates. The little ripple he felt was nothing compared to the heavy shadows that clung to Nightingale in this place. 

“I’ve lived here a long time,” Nightingale replied over scotch when Jim finally built the right question in his mind and found the time to ask. “There’s...history in this place, not all of it pleasant to recall.” 

“So, do you still practice yourself?” As the words left him, he knew that they had been the ones he had wanted to say since that morning, with Nightingale standing in the glow of Newton’s reflected sun. 

Nightingale’s face went carefully neutral. Jim had seen that look at Sarratt, in inquisitions about to go off the rails. He broke eye contact and looked around the comfortable study, taking a new tack. “You seem to know an awful lot, is all,” he explained, “and to fear a lot more than someone who’s read a thing in a book.” There was always a difference between someone who’d read about interrogation and someone who’d sat through one. “Just thought you looked like a man of experience. Thought it would be nice to know.” 

To his surprise, Nightingale's cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink. 

“I’m afraid there’s a great deal you don’t know about me, Jim.” 

Jim shrugged. “It’s not my business.”

“No, but I think I’d like it to be. I’ve been alone here for a long time.”

Nightingale’s eyes seemed to burn in the light of the fire. Jim saw for the first time just how lean he was, how weathered. How haunted. 

“I’m listening.”

“It’s more a matter of showing.” Nightingale held out a hand, palm up, and filled it with fire. The bright blue flame danced and flickered in his fingers, shrinking and growing as he pulled at it. There was an edge in his voice as he asked, “What do you think?”

Jim smiled. “I think you’d be a handy man to have on a stakeout.”

Blue traces shrank away as Nightingale began to laugh. “Of course,” he said, struggling to catch his breath. “Of course that’s what you think. Tell me, how on earth do you manage to remain so incredibly practical?” 

It was Jim’s turn to laugh, something he had not done in a long time. It was a thin thing, made of hurt and self denial. “In my line, Inspector, practicality’s the one thing that keeps you alive.” 

“Tell me more.”

“It’s never safe. The world is always a hostile place, every eye on your back could be an enemy. Nothing is real and you can never relax. Spies can’t help but spy, and when they run out of enemies they do it to their friends.” It was almost as magic as the blue flame, the way a few simple words from Nightingale could draw things from him he hadn’t even known were there. The words just poured out of him, straight and true. 

“So you keep your head down and take your punches. Look for tools, pick up everything you can keep, because you might need it later. Lock it up and keep it sorted.” He shrugged, a little embarrassed at his loquacity. “Seems magic just means I need another file. Have to connect it to what I’ve already got.”

Nightingale leaned forward, eyes bright. “Jim, that’s amazing. You haven’t panicked once since I met you. You just watched me conjure a fireball for god’s sake! And you just take it all in and file it away. It’s incredible.”

Jim found himself smiling at the awe in Nightingale’s voice. “Sounds like we’re just a couple of incredibles. Magic and...whatever kind of pig-headedness I’ve got.”

Nightingale reached out a hand and laid it on his arm. It was warm and comfortable, and his earnest declaration sent shivers down Jim’s spine. “I’m glad we found each other.”

Jim swallowed hard. “So am I.”

Silence stretched between them, tight as piano wire. Then Nightingale blinked and pulled away, folding his delicate hands in his lap. “I’m sorry.”

Jim frowned, confused. “What for? For putting me up? Showing me round? For the scotch?”

Nightingale shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that.” 

Jim watched him for several long heartbeats. “Come on, Inspector,” he said gently, “what else is in there that I don’t know about you?”

Nightingale’s head came up with a snap. “How did you-what?” 

Jim tilted his head to the side. “You made me a blue fireball. Let me into the great arcane secret. Should be relaxed, shouldn’t you? Now you’ve got that confession off your chest? But you’re not. There’s something in there eating at you, and this time I haven't got the intelligence I need to lead it out of you. So you’ll just have to tell me, or tell me to go to hell, whichever suits you best.”

Nightingale sighed in that deep, world weary way he had. “I would never tell you to go to hell,” he whispered. 

“Glad to hear it.” 

“And I...I don’t know what happened with you and...and your friend. The one from last night. But I think he hurt you.”

Jim felt a sudden fear rising in his chest. For a watcher, he began to realize he’d been incredibly blind. Nightingale had gone silent, waiting. He tried to force his reply through dry lips. 

“He did.”

Nightingale gave a tight nod. “I thought so. I...well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hurt you, Jim.” The words came from him in slow, pained bursts, like walking barefoot over broken glass. 

Jim couldn’t pull his eyes from Nightingale’s hands, clasped so tight together the knuckles were white. The question seemed to come from a long way off, passing through him and into being without his true knowledge. “What doesn’t matter?”

“Damn you and your interrogation technique,” Nightingale laughed, a near-hysterical note in his voice. The voice of a man about to break. Jim wasn’t sure he wanted that, but he couldn’t back off. He needed to know what was hiding behind Nightingale’s tension, what he had twisted around his heart so tight it appeared to burn him. 

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. I don’t want to put you in an impossible position.” 

“Yes,” Jim urged, using the same voice he had honed with his fathers’ spaniels. Quiet, slow, gentle. “Yes, you can. You know me, Thomas. Whatever it is, we can work it out.”

Thomas. That was the key. At the sound of his given name, Nightingale appeared to collapse into himself, eyes fluttering closed as he leaned on the arm of his chair. There was no dramatic sigh, no elegance or flash. Only simple words that came at him like a stab in the heart. “Jim, I’m trying not to kiss you and you’re making it very difficult.”

Jim blinked. “That was all?” 

Nightingale looked over at him, a small frown creasing his brow. “What do you mean?”

This time, Jim’s laugh was made of pure relief. “Damn you, man, I thought you were working up to a confession of treason!” He slid back in his chair, dissolving into helpless laughter. Then, seeing that Nightingale had mistaken his laughter for amusement, he went to him, taking both of those slim, elegant hands and holding them tight. 

“Now, just hang on a minute,” he said, catching his breath, “Before you get your feathers all ruffled, I want to make this perfectly clear.” Nightingale opened his mouth to protest, but Jim held up a hand. “Please. I’m grateful for your hospitality.” He felt his cheeks flush, but pressed on. “I am, and I appreciate that you don’t want to hurt me, or make me uncomfortable, but-“ the words caught in his throat, but he looked up into Nightingale’s worried face and forced them out. “But I need you to know, once and for all, that you could never hurt me like...like Bill. Never.” 

Nightingale looked as miserable as Jim had ever seen him. “You can’t know that. You barely know me.” 

“Sure,” Jim agreed, “But I know that you are just about as different from Bill Haydon as it’s possible to be, in the ways that count here.” In all the ways that counted at all. In every way. He wanted to laugh out loud at himself, at how completely different and glorious it felt to be asked, consulted, treated as a treasure that was not worth breaking. The joy of it filled him so much that it hurt. 

“Are you…” Nightingale hesitated, working his way up to the leap, and Jim took delight in watching him make the climb. “Are you saying you want me to...to kiss you?” 

Jim nodded with every ounce of decision he could summon. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Heart hammering against his ribs, he reached one hand to touch Nightingale’s cheek. “The sooner the better.”

He tasted like scotch and loneliness. In all that was to come to him later, he held on to that taste for all he was worth, to the feel of Nightingale's lips on his, the way they melted perfectly against one another like smoke and flame. 

When they separated, Nightingale’s cheeks were bright. “Are you sure?” His voice shook, “Are you sure this is alright? That it’s...that it’s what you want?” 

The question sent a thrill down his back and he drew a sharp breath. “Yes. Yes I’m sure. I’m sure.” His hands trembled as he pulled Nightingale closer. “Are you sure? This isn’t just a hospitality kiss?” 

They fumbled at shirt buttons and belts, and Nightingale’s breathless laugh raised the hairs on his arms. “Oh yes. I think you’re the one thing I’ve wanted in a very long time.”

They made it to the bed eventually. He thought it was Nightingale’s, but he couldn’t be sure. When he returned to himself, it was to feel every inch of his skin held and cherished, caught in a tangle of limbs from which he had no desire to extricate himself, not now, not ever. 

Nightingale’s chest rose and fell, breath cool on his skin. There was no such thing as safety, he knew that, but right there, right then, he felt as close to it as he had ever been. His sigh was made of contentment as he let himself relax into Thomas Nightingale and drift off into sleep. He did not dream


	2. Dark Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter slowly relaxed its grip on London. The spring sun was a pale, watery thing, fragile and inconstant. As it gave way to rain, Nightingale began to feel his hope seeping away and a bleak monotony coming in to take its place. He drifted from task to task, picking away at investigations one lead at a time. Items confiscated. Lists checked. Universally slow and dull. Every part of him ached at the inaction, but he tightened his jaw and kept on. Kept on waiting.

Rain lashed down in thick sheets, soaking through his woolen uniform as magically assisted thunder snarled overhead on the tails of green lightning. Nightingale could hardly see, but the sounds of the battle rang loud in his ears. The hiss of magic, the crack of gunfire, the screams of the dying. They couldn’t get out. They were trapped. Magicians and infantry fell around him, but he couldn’t move. His feet were held fast in the thick German mud, hands clenched tight around his staff, jaw clenched so tight he couldn’t even scream. 

The ground began to shake, jostling his shoulders as though the earth itself was trying to stir his body to action. He knew he had to run, had to hold the line, let the others get away, had to move, but it was all he could do to watch fire rain from the sky, and weep in fear and shame. 

His shoulders began to shake more violently, and then he heard it. 

_Thomas!_

__

It came to him as the voice of God to Moses in the wilderness, the voice that held the chaos at bay, that silenced the screams and the horror. It was barely above a whisper, but he could hear it anywhere. The sky began to crumble above him, the tortured clouds falling down to what was now a rubble pile of shadows and whispers. The fire faded to a warm candle light, and in one last violent rush his mind was slammed back into his body. 

Jim had him by the shoulders, not the earth. Jim’s was the urgent, powerful voice in his ears, Jim’s dark eyes that softened in relief as Nightingale looked up at him, blinking back to wakefulness. 

“I’m...sorry,” he said, trying to shake the last remnants of the dream from his mind. 

He pushed himself up on his elbows, feeling Jim’s weight warm and comforting across his waist. 

“No need for sorry,” Jim replied, relief hanging on every syllable, “I’m just glad you’re alright. Thought you were having a seizure or something.”

Nightingale passed a hand over his face. “No, no, nothing like that.” His voice felt tight and scratchy in his throat, as though he’d been screaming for hours. “Just a dream.” 

“Hell of a dream.”

He nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry, I should have told you I get those from time to time.”

Jim shook his head, and Nightingale felt a tightness creep into his chest. “No need. I didn’t need to know before. I know now.”

Nightingale laughed, shaky and so grateful he could nearly feel it in his fingertips. “God, man,” he said, reaching out to run trembling fingers over the line of Jim’s jaw, “does nothing put you off your stride?” 

Jim’s grin flashed at him in the low light. “I reckon there have been one or two things in the past month,” he admitted, “mostly your fault.”

A blush crept treacherously over Nightingale’s cheeks. Sharing his bed with Jim Prideaux, only sort of gentleman spy, had been a distinct pleasure. It had also been a learning experience. He was about to open his mouth again when Jim’s finger brushed over his lips. 

“Now,” the whisper tickled his neck as Jim leant close to him, “don’t you go apologizing for that too.”

Nightingale swallowed, the last chill of Ettersberg banished from his bones by the heat of Jim’s kiss on his chest. It was this sort of pastime, he was certain, that had held the dreams at bay for so long, and he eagerly let himself melt into Jim’s touch, the strength of his arms, the way he made the world just fall away. It was almost like a drug, and the thought froze his breath in his lungs. 

“Jim,” he murmured, one hand running through the other man’s dark hair, “I woke you. Are you-are you sure you want to…”

His words trailed away as Jim’s tongue traced over the curve of his ear. “With you?” Jim breathed, “I always ‘want to’, as you put it.” Air rushed cool against his skin as Jim pulled away, looking down on him with that inscrutable look Nightingale had classified as his ‘spy face’. 

“But you’re right,” Jim continued, “You were asleep, and I only assumed. What would be the most help?”

“Jim bloody Prideaux,” Nightingale said, shaking his head, “I was asking about you. How did this get to be about me again?” 

“I answered you,” Jim said simply, “Then I returned the courtesy. Just because I always want to doesn’t mean you do.” 

“And I am a tricky magician, after all,” Nightingale said, unable to help the sarcasm from creeping into his voice, “so all those noises I was making might have been a clever conceit.” 

Jim smiled, that little half twist of his lips that was more rueful than glad. “I don’t ever want to presume.” He was suddenly grave, looking up with those haunted eyes. “Not with you. Not ever.” 

“Then lay down, comrade,” Nightingale said gently, pulling Jim back to the pillows with him, “and kiss me.”

Time slid by in uncertain waves. Jim’s hands smoothed away the cold, and the rhythm of their bodies banished the shadow of Bill Haydon, who dropped between them like a shroud whenever ambiguity came around. 

Fingers twisted in the sheets, every part of his skin on fire, Nightingale prayed fervently to every god he could think of that this respite from the terror of existence would never end. It would, of course. All things had their endings. Even so, as he lay breathless and sweat soaked, Jim collapsed across him, he prayed. When sleep came creeping over him once more, there was only blackness and the safe weight of Jim’s arms around him. 

He knew that nothing lasted, but his heart still twisted in his chest when Jim came into his office dressed in a dark suit and tie with the face he probably wore to funerals. It was like his spy face, only it was layered with a carefully constructed nonchalance that didn’t sit right on so deeply passionate a face. He knew in an instant that something was wrong. The suit was his first clue. He’d seen it before, of course, but with the tie loose and the jacket draped over Jim’s forearm. Worse than the suit, Jim’s body was all wrong, every casual line that had eased into his posture over the last few months replaced with hard, sharp angles. Jaw tight, shoulders raised against the world. Even his voice was wrong-too formal, too stiff.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

Nightingale smiled, pushing away from the desk and his reservations. “Only a very tedious investigation,” he replied. “But you look like you have something on your mind. Shall we walk?” 

Jim’s grateful nod confirmed his suspicions of difficult conversation ahead. Coats and scarves done up to keep out the bite of the early spring breeze, they set off into the grey evening streets. In spite of his apprehension, it felt good to fall into step with Jim, their long strides perfectly matched, echoes of their footsteps hitting the brick and pavement in tandem. They walked for several blocks in companionable silence while Jim got his words twisted the right way round. 

Nightingale had never pictured himself as a patient man. In professional life, he’d always been a fast thinker and an even faster talker, but there was something about Jim that made silence comfortable. It meant a lot, knowing that, when the words finally did come, they would be measured, thoughtful, and well worth the wait. 

“I have to go away,” Jim said at last. 

The words hit him like a slap, but he tried not to show it. “I see,” he said instead, scrambling to wall up thoughts of going back to a cold and lonely bed. “Overseas, I assume?”

Jim nodded. “New posting. Somewhere out east.” 

He couldn’t say where, of course, and Nightingale didn’t ask. It was bad enough knowing Jim was leaving without having to imagine him behind the iron curtain. 

“When will you leave?” 

“Early morning.” 

Nightingale struggles to keep his voice level and calm. It was better this way, of course, just to cut away all at once, without drawing out the apprehension. 

“How long?” 

To his surprise, Jim’s hand curled around his as they walked, squeezing it tight. “Until they bring me back.” There was a tremor there, one he hadn’t been expecting. “Could be a month, could be a year, could be five years. No way to tell.” 

Nightingale was conscious of coming close to the heart of the matter and he braced himself for the coming ending, taking a slow, steady breath. 

“I wanted to ask if I could write to you.” 

He nearly tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, stumbling over his feet and into Jim, nearly knocking them both flat. 

“I’m sorry,” he said when all was right side up once more. “I-what did you say just now?” 

Jim flushed and looked down at the pavement, muttering his question into his coat collar. “I just wondered if I could write you.” 

“Is that in bounds with regulation?” Nightingale asked, pulling out the only question that made sense in the tangled heap of his feelings. 

Jim’s jaw tightened. “Didn’t plan to ask.” 

Nightingale let out a breathless laugh. “Of course you didn’t, it was stupid of me to ask.” 

Jim eyes lifted, sliding back into their place in the spy’s mask. “Sorry to bring it up-“ he began, but Nightingale cut him off with a desperate wave of his hand. 

“No, no, don’t apologize, I was being an idiot,” he hurried to explain, wondering how he could possibly explain that he had been so ready to take losing Jim with grace that he was entirely unprepared for keeping him. For keeping this. He gave Jim’s hand and answering squeeze-late but no less strong on account of that. “Please write.” 

Jim’s sudden embrace was warm, and the air misted around them as they both let out their nerves in laughter. 

“I will,” Jim whispered, turning Nightingale’s insides to liquid velvet, “I will.”

The feeling lasted longer than he had expected. Even in the torrential spring rain, the memory of Jim beside him seemed to linger in the Folly like Vestigia. Cologne in the wool of his jacket. The empty placemat at the table that Molly always laid out, just to show that she missed the company almost as much as he did. Every step in the hall, every peal of the bell, every letter. 

It was strange, the way anticipation sharpened the mind. Despite his usual blissful ignorance of the daily routine of the world, he now knew that the post arrived at eleven every morning. When the first one arrived, he felt his stomach tie itself in knots. Whether they were of nervousness or excitement, he couldn’t be sure. 

Jim’s written words were as sparse as his spoken ones. Nearly devoid of sentimentality, they usually contained information about the weather (bloody hot and so damp it felt like breathing soup), the neighbours (a quarrelsome elderly couple and their three beggarly cats), the juju men (mercifully banal and boring), and the sights (vague). Every line hinted at a vast body of unspoken thoughts, and Nightingale saved every scrap and hint, throwing himself into the task of reconstructing Jim’s life abroad. Molly was very little help, but she did seem to read the letters if he left them on the hall table when he had finished them. 

There was never a return address, and each envelope was stamped from a different post office across Southeast Asia and, though he felt guilty about not being able to write back, Jim’s caution proved well deserved. 

The little man came to the door one glorious May afternoon, somewhat out of breath and sweating. He stood on the top step, blinking up at Nightingale from behind thick spectacles. According to his report, he was a friend of Jim’s just wanting to look in. 

“In case you were in need of any assistance while Jim is abroad,” the man explained, every word an apology. 

Something in the man’s tone raised the hairs on the back of Nightingale’s neck. It might have been the unassuming kindness that set him on the alert, or the way the sleepy eyes never left off scanning the room, recording each small detail. Then again, it might have been the utter insanity of offering to ‘look in’ on a spy’s...whatever he was.

“We have all we need, thank you,” he replied coolly. He didn’t know why, but the warning bells in his head told him to guard all information jealously. 

Breath came easier after the little man went away, but he found himself watching over his shoulder in the days that came after. He was certainly no spy, but being a magician was not without its benefits. Even watchers had to walk the pavement, and he felt some comfort whenever the wards he had set remained comfortably quiet. 

They only tripped twice, once in early August when a short man in a dark coat stood for a long while on the pavement, watching the windows, and once as November’s frost climbed out of October’s shadow. 

It was late when the sigil on his desk began to glow, well past normal watching hours. The soft white light pulsed gently in the low light of the study just a few moments before the door opened. Molly stood in the doorway, her eyes sparkling in what might just have been excitement. Nightingale felt his heart quicken. 

“I suppose I had better see who’s up to no good on our pavement,” he said with exaggerated calm. Molly’s slim brows drew down in disapproval, but he forced himself to observe his usual measured pace all the way to the door. 

He paused in the hall, hands held carefully in his pockets. “Do you want to get it?” He asked, a smile threatening to break onto his face, “or shall I?” 

Molly’s grin flew over her face in a flash of teeth, then she nearly flew to the door. She paused, smoothing her apron and straightening her white cap before pulling the door open. 

Jim stood on the step. He was older, darker, and smelt of strange soap and jungle air, but still as calm and solid as ever. 

“Hello Molly, is the magician in?” 

He could hear the smile in Jim’s voice, and was just about to step forward when Molly shocked them both by standing on her toes to fling her arms around Jim’s neck. Eyes wide, he gingerly wrapped one arm around her, patting her back as though she were a small child. “It’s...good to see you too, Molly,” he said gruffly, “Missed the bacon and eggs. Wouldn’t believe the stuff they serve up out there.” 

She pulled away and looked up at him, studying his face, tracing the new lines with one delicate hand. Then she stepped back, clearly satisfied with whatever inspection she had completed, and Nightingale couldn’t keep his smile back any longer. 

“Welcome home, Jim.” 

There was less of him to hug under his battered jacket, but Nightingale held on anyway, breathing in that familiar cologne, letting it fill him with the warmth of safety. 

“Home,” Jim sighed, pulling him closer, “feels good.” 

He had never known it could hurt this bad to care for someone. He knew loss, he knew pain, but contentment and relief had never ached like this before. “Good,” he breathed into Jim’s lapel. “That’s good.” 

There was a pointed click as Molly closed the door. He knew they shouldn’t stand there in the hall holding each other all night, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go either. It was unbelievable, how he could have forgotten how good it felt to be held, to have their breath move in perfect rhythm. 

“I should let you clean up and settle in,” he murmured at last. 

“I suppose.” 

“Molly will want to feed you.”

“It’s after midnight.”

“She’ll still want to feed you.” 

They seemed to come back from a long way off, moving through the normal things like ships through cloud, coming to rest over tea, cold beef, and fresh bread in the study. Jim had wanted to listen, so Nightingale spoke of his cases, wrapping up the last of Jonathan Shepherd’s mess, his researches, the strange new relationships he had tried to build among the various magical beings in the city. He filled the air with all the letters he hadn’t written, pouring out the last months with growing relief. When the words had run dry, he sat back in his chair with a contented sigh. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding onto everything so tight until the burden had been lifted. 

Jim smiled at him over his tea, pulling away the hardness that had grown into his face since spring. “I haven’t heard tales like that in ages.” 

“They’re hardly tales. Just the mundane things I’ve been storing up to bore you with.”

Jim snorted. “River spirits hardly count as mundane in my books. Certainly a step above honey traps.”

His face froze for a moment before falling back to its new harshness. Nightingale waited. 

“I’m not much of a philosopher,” Jim said at last, “but there’s something sordid about trapping a man with his own filth.” And he would say no more, no matter how diligently Nightingale held his silence. 

It wasn’t until later, when they lay side by side in the dark, that the words came. “I want you to make me a promise, Thomas.” 

There was a gravity his words that made Nightingale shiver, despite the warmth in the room. “Alright.” 

“I want you to promise me that, no matter what might happen to me, what anyone might tell you about me, you won’t try to come rescue me.” He was speaking urgently now, the words tumbling over one another in their haste. “I don't care what they tell you, I want you to stay right where you are until I break or I come back.” 

“Jim, I can’t-“ 

“You can.” The ferocity in his voice shoved the protest back down Nightingale’s throat. 

“You can. If anything ever happens to me, you just put up a wall and move on, you understand? You just put me in the past and forget I was ever here.” 

The breath caught in Nightingale’s chest. He couldn’t speak, just lay there next to this precious spy and watch the last of his illusions crumble to dust. 

Jim’s heavy sigh of brushed over his skin. The words that followed drove straight to his heart. “I can stand a lot, Thomas. An awful lot. But I don’t think I could stand the thought of you in a trap because of me. This life is dirty and mean, and there are no such things as morals and scruples. They wouldn’t hesitate to use you to break me, and...and...” Jim’s voice grew muffled, his face buried in the crook of Nightingale’s neck. “God damn you, Thomas Nightingale. Damn you straight to hell, but I think you might just be the only thing that would work first try out.”

That desperate whisper nearly tore him to pieces, but he reached for Jim, pulling him close enough to feel the wild beat of his heart. “I promise,” he said as Jim’s tears fell hot on his chest. “I promise I won’t. I won’t come after you.” He drew a shaky breath, running a hand absently through Jim’s hair. “But you can’t make me forget you. I can’t promise that.” 

Jim came unwound then, relaxing into him, and Nightingale found himself wondering at what kind of war they were fighting. What kind of soldiers kept their enemies at their backs and showed their loyalty by throwing their friends to the wolves without a whisper.

It wasn’t long before he had his answer. In the end, he could have done without it, but there had never been another way for the two of them to go. No other ending but Jim slipping into bed beside him in the blackest part of the night, holding onto him as though they were both about to disappear. 

“You’re late tonight.” He was shaking too, but Nightingale didn’t want to mention it. Foolishly, he hoped that leaving fear unspoken would keep it at bay. It didn’t. 

“Yes. Control kept me late. Well, asked me out late, I suppose. I didn’t mean to wake you, I just wanted to come home before I left.” 

Home. The word on Jim’s tongue stirred up all the contentment they’d stored up through the fall, the comfort of sharing space together. He turned into Jim’s embrace. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you’re here.” 

They lay in the dark for a long time, listening to the silence. “Control’s sending me back to Czecho,” Jim murmured. 

“You don’t need to tell me.” 

“No, but I want to. This is different, and I want you to know, just...just in case.”

Nightingale’s blood stilled in his veins. He swallowed hard. “I’m listening.” 

Jim talked. More words than Nightingale had ever heard him string together at once. He learned more about the Circus in a half hour’s frantic whispering than he’d learned in all the years he’d known Jim. More than he wanted to know, in some cases. All about the missions that had failed, agents that had been burned, and how badly he wanted not to believe Control’s wildcat notions that there was a traitor in the service, buried in right at the top. 

“It’s bloody absurd. I know all of those men, grew up with them, I’d trust them all with my life. He has to be wrong. He has to be.”

Nightingale heard the words, but he also heard what wasn’t said, the name that remained conspicuously absent from the whole long speech. And he heard the fear dressed up as anger and frustration, a fear too deep to be given a name. He pulled Jim closer, smelling Control’s awful sherry on his breath. 

“I know why you have to go,” he murmured, “Please just promise you’ll be safe.”

“I can’t promise that.” 

“I know, I know it won’t be true, I just want to hear you say it.” 

Jim’s lips were soft on his, words turning to a caress. “I won't lie to you.” 

It was the truth and, in a world where lies came easy and cheap, Nightingale knew he had been given a precious gift. He didn’t ask again. And when Jim climbed carefully out of bed with the dawn, he didn’t follow. He’d made a promise. 

He was nearly able to keep it, but the paper that Molly brought him a week later proved more than he had prepared for. She had it clutched in her hand so tight the newsprint left small black marks on her pale skin when she laid it by his breakfast setting. She stood there, still and silent, as the headline screamed at him from the table. 

_British Spy Captured in Czechoslovakia-Questions in Parliament  
Czechoslovak authorities have confirmed the capture of James Ellis, a spy travelling under false British papers..._

_The rest of the article blurred in front of him as he stared. It was suddenly impossible to breathe past the growing anger that threatened to choke him. Jim has trusted them with his life. A mission so secret he’d had to go to a dingy service flat in St. James to be briefed, and now it was all over the papers. The pieces fell into place like bricks, the set up, the trap, the whole awful mess Jim had been too loyal to truly believe. As he sat fuming, all he could see was one name. The only other soul Jim would have given the nod before going on this ridiculous suicide mission. The only man who would have known where he was going, what he was risking. The man who had thrown him to the dogs like a scrap of meat._

_Bill Haydon._

_He strode into the Circus without bothering to knock, trusting his cold rage and his London Metropolitan badge to get him past the old man at the turnstile. The fifth floor was crawling like a kicked anthill, but the swarms of secretaries and anonymous dark suits parted for him as he let a gust of cool air swirl around him, lifting the edges of his coat. He saw the office he was looking for near the far side of the open floor, occupied by a pale, weak-chinned man speaking rapidly into a telephone._

_The man looked up as Nightingale entered, closing the door carefully behind him. When he turned the blinds closed, Haydon finally spoke._

_“Who the devil are you?”_

_“The devil is exactly right.” Nightingale leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk and fixing Haydon with a stony stare._

_“Look, if you think you can just barge in here and-“_

_Nightingale gestured, and the phone flew from Haydon’s hand to crash back into the receiver. “Listen carefully, Mr. Haydon,” he said softly, “I only plan to say this once.”_

_Haydon gaped like a fish out of water, but Nightingale didn’t pause long enough to let him collect his thoughts._

_“I know what you are,” he said, still in the same low, deadly tone, “and I know what you’ve done.”_

_The blood drained from Haydon’s face. “Wha...what do you mean?”_

_“Don’t bother to try lying to me,” Nightingale dismissed the point with a cut of his hand. “I don’t care that you’re a traitor and a coward, and I don’t care what kind of stupid game you think you’re playing. This time you’ve played with the life of the best man I know, and if you remember nothing else in the coming days, then remember this: If Jim Prideaux is not brought safely back to England, you are a dead man.”_

_Haydon appeared to regain some of his scattered composure. “I assure you, sir, that this operation is extremely delicate in nature, and we have all our best-“_

_Nightingale flicked his fingers and Haydon’s jaw snapped closed. His eyes bulged with the effort to speak, but he froze as Nightingale leaned down to bring them face to face. “Bring him home, Haydon,” he whispered, “or I will come for you.”_

_He stepped out of the office, ignoring the stares that followed him on his way out. He snapped his fingers to release the spell as he reached the lift, unable to help a small smirk from creeping onto his face at the sound of Haydon’s startled yell._

_The Folly became a cage, and for the next month he paced it like a starving tiger. There were no more headlines, no news of any sort, only the endless stretch of worry. He had set a watch on the Circus and, by mid February, he had word from one of his informants. Two words, in fact, scribbled on the back of a receipt and slipped under the front door._

_Back alive_

_He could breathe again. Breathe and wait. He had promised not to come looking, and as long as he could know Jim was safe and alive, he felt he should do his best to honour that promise. Speaking to Haydon had probably been pushing it, but he didn’t care. There was only so much he could be expected to stand for without action. He had done what he could, all that was left was to wait. Wait and hope that Jim would make it home._

_Winter slowly relaxed its grip on London. The spring sun was a pale, watery thing, fragile and inconstant. As it gave way to rain, Nightingale began to feel his hope seeping away and a bleak monotony coming in to take its place. He drifted from task to task, picking away at investigations one lead at a time. Items confiscated. Lists checked. Universally slow and dull. Every part of him ached at the inaction, but he tightened his jaw and kept on. Kept on waiting._


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You could have said something earlier,” Jim mumbled, fingers curling in Nightingale’s hair. 
> 
> “No, I couldn’t. Not until you were ready.” 
> 
> “Mm. What if I had never been ready?”
> 
> Nightingale shrugged, at least as well as he could curled against Jim’s chest. “Then I would have-“
> 
> “Just gone on missing me?” Jim interjected.
> 
> “Yes.”
> 
> Jim shifted against him and he felt the kiss on his forehead. “I don’t deserve you, Thomas Nightingale.”

The Sarratt grounds were heart-achingly beautiful. Jim remembered autumns past when the whole valley was ablaze with crimson and gold, the crisp air carrying the promise of frost. That night, it was still as a graveyard, silent but for the slight rustle of night birds in the trees. Moonlight dripped over every surface, fading to shadow in the undergrowth. It seemed appropriate. His breath fogged slightly in the spring air and his shoulder throbbed with every step. He welcomed the pain, clinging to the razor’s edge of it in his mind, holding back the damn that threatened to overwhelm him. George Smiley. Silent as a toad, slippery as a fox. Who the hell did he think he was, walking softly through the school grounds to blow the walls he’d built to pieces. 

Draw a line, they’d said. Well he’d drawn one, good and hard, no matter how much it had hurt him to do it. Drawn a line and tried his damnedest to forget it all. Forget the steel walls. Hard cement. Pain. Guilt. Shame. Pain. And the small treasure he kept locked away, so deep they would never find it. Deeper than the mole, deeper than tinker tailor and the whole bloody mess. The tiny light that burned right at the centre of him when they hosted him down and got back to work. Lips that tasted of whiskey and regret, and the long slim hands that felt like home. He’d drawn a line and buried it deep. 

Then George Smiley walked in with his soft voice and his scotch and his damned questions. He felt the rage that had simmered in his blood since Czecho rise up inside him. “The mole, if there was one,” George had said. Even now, Jim struggled to bite back the angry shout that threatened to burst from his lips. 

There bloody well had been a mole. He knew that now, knew it with every stab of pain from his shoulder, and he would never forget it. Never. Not even after tonight. 

He crouched outside the fenced compound, looking up at the lit windows of the cell and the familiar shadow that passed back and forth in front of the curtain. It had been a long time since he had seen it last, but he knew every sweep and curve of that face like the back of his own hand. It had flitted in and out of his mind in all his long days in captivity, when he was certain he would never see it again, and it had hit him like a punch in the gut as it had risen over the blinds of the Witchcraft safehouse. Bill. 

His oldest and closest friend, the man who had given his life a direction, who had presided over his every moment in the circus like the sun over green fields. One of the most brilliant men he knew, and the one he’d defended against every naysayer, even Karla himself. 

He felt the prickle of tears burn at the corner of his eyes. He still didn’t know how to feel; he only knew that picturing Bill Haydon as Karla’s puppet hurt an awful lot. He couldn’t even be angry, but then he had never been very good at staying angry with Bill. Worst of all, he knew, with the unexamined part of him that had always known the truth of Bill, that this was just the most recent in a long, protracted series of betrayals. 

It was easy to slip through the fence, to wait unseen behind the trunk of a large oak until Bill’s restlessness drove him out to the garden. His eyes were puffy under the moon, and Jim wondered distantly what use Bill had for tears. 

“It’s far too late for those, Bill,” he said softly, stepping away from the tree to let his shadow fall long in the moonlight. 

“Jim?” Bill’s voice was hoarse. “What are you doing here? I hope you’re not here to make a scene.”

“A scene,” Jim murmured. “Of course. That is what you’d think, isn’t it?” He let out a hollow laugh. “No, Bill, no more scenes. You and I are done with scenes.” 

“You don’t...you don’t want to know why?” Bill asked incredulously.

“It doesn’t matter why,” Jim said softly, coming close enough to Bill to see the sudden flicker of fear in his eyes. “All that matters is that I’m out of second chances.” 

“Second-what are you on about?” Bill’s voice trembled as Jim laid a tender hand on his neck. 

“I would have followed you anywhere,” he whispered, “would have been with you until the end, like the faithful dog you wanted.” 

His hands closed over Bill’s throat. “If only you hadn’t sent me off to the wolves.”

The crack vibrated up his arms and Bill’s limbs went slack. It was over. His hands shook slightly as he loosened his grip, letting the body fall to the damp grass. He stood alone in the moonlight, staring down at all that he had given and lost. Then he began to walk. 

*

Nightingale woke late to the sun streaming through the curtains Molly had flung wide. Blinking past the light, he struggled to pull his mind up out of sleep, away from the dreams that had plagued him all night. He sat up, feeling suddenly very old indeed. Old and tired. Tired of the intrigues, tired of the empty grey expanse of his life, tired of the ghosts, tired of waiting. 

He did not bother to dress for breakfast, throwing a dressing gown on over his pyjamas before shuffling out into the hall in his slippers. It was rude to keep Molly waiting with these late habits, but he found himself caring less and less. The worst the food would be was cold. 

Molly had lain the paper by his place at the table, and he glanced over it as he sat. Politics. Rhetoric. Nothing new. He sighed. 

“I’ve never seen you unkempt before.” 

His head snapped up at the sound of the voice from the door, and sat frozen, staring. 

Jim Prideaux stood there in the morning sunlight, hunting coat flung over his arm, his right shoulder held up at a new and awkward angle. There was a hollowness in his voice and in his cheeks, deep shadows under his eyes. Nightingale blinked hard, half wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. His tongue felt all tangled up in his mouth, so he abandoned it, rising from his chair and crossing the floor until he could reach out and touch the weathered skin of Jim’s cheek. It was solid, real, not a phantom conjured out of troubled sleep, and Nightingale felt something inside him come apart at the seams, letting all his months of anxious waiting pour from his eyes as he rested his head against Jim’s chest, tears beading on the wool of his sweater.

“I thought you were gone,” he whispered at last. 

“I was,” came Jim’s choked reply. “Long gone. But I’m here now, if you’ll still have me after...after everything.”

“I kept your damn promise,” Nightingale said into Jim’s coat collar, drinking deep from the scent of him, the solid feel of arms around him. “Of course I want you, you idiot man.”

Jim leaned down and Nightingale felt moisture against his cheek as their lips met. “You have to be sure.”

Nightingale looked up, staring straight at him. “I waited for you,” he said, simply. “And I would have gone on waiting as long as it took for you to come home to me.”

Fear flickered behind Jim’s eyes. “And what if I had never come back?” 

Nightingale smiled sadly. “Then I would have been alone again, and missed you terribly.”

Something tightened around his heart as he thought of all that might lay ahead, of this body that would carry him away from this moment, past where Jim could follow him. He took a slow breath, willing himself to let go of his fear as he took Jim’s hand in his, raising it to his lips. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, “You’re here, and for however long we have to spend together, we’re home.”

Jim didn’t talk about Testify. In some ways, he didn’t have to- Nightingale could see it. It lived in the hollow circles under his eyes that seemed to take months to fade, the way he froze at every unexpected sound, in his ragged breathing when he woke in the night from dreams he would never speak into the waking world. 

Molly’s cooking worked its slow magic and, as spring became summer, there seemed to be more mass to Jim, more strength in his long hands. The raw skin on his wrists faded to a patchy white, he no longer winced when his shoulder hung wrong. Nightingale did his best to hold in his anger as he watched his lover heal. The body, as he well knew, was quicker than the mind to forget the wounds of the past, and it hurt him to know that there were demons in Jim’s soul that no amount of good cooking could send away. 

They lay close under the covers in the half-light of the summer evenings, listening to each other’s breathing, and Nightingale told himself he would be content with that. It was enough to have Jim close, to hear his voice in the Folly’s echoing corridors, he didn’t need to think about the way he flinched away from touch, or they way he came to bed late and lay like a stranger beside him. 

He had spent so much time walling those thoughts away at the back of his mind that it surprised him to see Jim standing at the window when he came up to bed one night in July. The soft oranges of sunset painted his profile against the window, and Nightingale’s heart ached to see the delicate lines of shadow so perfectly formed. 

“You’re up here early,” he said softly, striving for a casual tone. He began his routine, cufflinks clinking in the dish on the dresser, top button mercifully loosening, letting him breathe easier. 

“I missed watching you.” Jim had turned from the window, and his words sent an electric shiver down Nightingale’s spine. 

“Oh.”

He took a long, slow breath, focusing all his attention on his shirt buttons. If he ignored the heat building in his cheeks, he hoped, it would fade back to a manageable level. Jim didn’t help, moving towards him, rough hands closing slowly around his wrists. 

“I’m...I’m not sure what to say,” he said, running a thumb absently over Nightingale’s palm, “except that I’m sorry and I miss...I miss...you. Your hands.” 

Nightingale’s heart pounded in his ears, goosebumps crawled over his skin. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he whispered. Jim’s thumb has not ceased its fretful movement over his palm; it made it hard to think clearly. 

Jim gave a short nod. “Sure. But I am anyway.” He sighed and leant forward a little, resting his forehead against Nightingale's. “Touch me, please, Thomas.”

It was only a whisper, but Nightingale would have heard it anywhere. He felt his own blood surge in his veins, but hesitated, holding himself in check. “I don’t want to push you, Jim.”

“You won’t.” 

The utter confidence in those words nearly tore him to pieces. Against his will, his eyes filled with tears. 

“Jim,” he breathed, part plea, part benediction. 

“I’m ready, Thomas,” Jim’s lips brushed against his, “I...I trust you. I’ve always trusted you. All through...everything, all of it, I had you.”

Nightingale put his arms around ribs that had filled out, feeling more and more like the Jim he had known before. Solid. Warm. “Alright. Just...just let me take my time.” 

Jim nodded, then watched in silence as he finished with his buttons, tossing his shirt onto the dressing table. He hesitated for a moment, hands hovering over Jim’s collar, but there was no flinch, no pulling away as he slowly unbuttoned the stiff cotton, marvelling at the exposed skin beneath it. Scars criss crossed over Jim’s chest, and the whitened flesh puckered cruelly around the two exit wounds under his right collarbone. Nightingale ran his fingers over the marks, needing to bear witness to what had been done, what had been lost. 

A shiver rippled the muscles under his hand and he froze, worry tightening into a hard knot in his chest. Jim let out a shaky breath, closing his eyes. “Take all the time you want,” he gasped, “but for God’s sake, don’t stop.” 

Nightingale couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up inside of him. “Not unless you tell me,” he said, fighting to get his breath back as he slid Jim’s shirt from his shoulders. 

“Sure,” Jim moaned, pulling him close, “whatever you say, magician.” 

It was slow, he made sure of that. He savoured every moment, taking all the time he could to revel in this new body under his hands, all of its new twists and lines, every unexpected gasp and moan. They lay in the dark now not as strangers, but tangled together, heartbeats in rhyme. 

“I missed you,” he whispered at last. 

“You could have said something earlier,” Jim mumbled, fingers curling in Nightingale’s hair. 

“No, I couldn’t. Not until you were ready.” 

“Mm. What if I had never been ready?”

Nightingale shrugged, at least as well as he could curled against Jim’s chest. “Then I would have-“

“Just gone on missing me?” Jim interjected.

“Yes.”

Jim shifted against him and he felt the kiss on his forehead. “I don’t deserve you, Thomas Nightingale.”

Joy swelled inside him, hot and bubbling, and he propped himself up on one elbow, staring down into Jim’s long face. “Well, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me now, whether you deserve it or not.” 

Jim’s laughter felt like sunshine, his kiss like spring. “Good,” he whispered. “Good.”


End file.
